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Disclaimer: Everything written here is opinion. I get a lot of people asking for advice, for critique, and I just want a post I can easily link to.

There is no "right way" to make a species. There are TONS of variables that might affect your success (in sales). Nothing here should be taken literally. It's only my opinion & personal methods!

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Not in it for Money

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I DO NOT recommend people make an OS for the specific reason that they want to make money. It's fine to want a little bit of spending money or something in the mindset of a little side-project. But if you go into this market with the expectation of making a living & supporting yourself off of this? You're very likely to be disappointed, cause yourself unnecessary stress, and possibly make yourself feel like a failure, when you absolutely are not.

A decent part of making money off of adoptable species? Is luck. Obviously, there are other factors. Obviously, you can boost your chances. But please, please don't try doing this with the intention of making money. You'll sour yourself on your species, you'll be stressed, and you won't have as much passion for your art. Trust me, it shows.

Make your species for YOU! Make it for fun. Make it for your friends. If you end up making money? Great! That's amazing! I really hope you do!But you need to make sure you have love for the work, even if you're not getting financial anything out of it. It needs to be fun for you, a hobby!

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General Tips & Advice:

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-Treat Yourself!

The biggest fan or your species should be you! Make yourself some characters! Make 'em super rare, if you want! Make some for your friends.Enjoy your own creations! If you make a really great design and don't want to sell it, don't! I do this all the time and regret it.Just keep it.

-Give it time.

It can take months or years before your species really starts to sell, especially if you don't have a lot of watchers, or your watchers aren'tfrom the OS side of dA. Don't worry too hard. Stay dedicated. I see a lot of promising species pop up, and die/go unused shortly after. The longer you do this, the more you'll improve. The more people will see of your species and become interested, and species owners will become more of a community. Patience, patience.

-Don't overuse bases.

Bases are great! I don't recommend going baseless until you've really got a feel for drawing your species. That being said, overusing them can really damage your product. I'd recommend using a base 3-6 times and then switching. People need to see variable poses so they can more easily understand the anatomy, base overuse can start to make individual designs look same-ish, and the more you draw the more you improve!

-Design isn't working? Let it go.

So you've just spent four hours on a design, and it's just okay. Something just isn't quite clicking. Stop. Take a breather. Try a different theme. Save it, come back to it later. Don't settle. When you're ready to, go back. Delete the markings. Play with the hue-slider. Don't get too stuck on any one color, or marking, and try to edit the rest of the design to compensate. Change the actual offending color or layer. Just do it. I know it looked great in your head. Do it anyway. You never know what you're holding yourself back from, and you can always try your original idea again later!

-Cheat a little.

So, your species has some strict feature rules and stuff? Don't be too afraid to bend them a little. You might find adding new features or typesreally refreshes your designs. It's not like you have to sell the super rare stuff! Just have a little fun, and don't get too caught up in your own restrictions.

-Don't fret over "theft".

Listen, look-alikes are going to happen. If you feel like someone is really, truly copying you, damaging your product, etc you need to tell them so, gently.Don't attack people! They often don't even realize it's happening. It's a common issue, especially if someone's been drawing a species a lot, to start subconsciously imitating the proportions/anatomy. A quick heads-up might save you both a major headache.

If you can't handle copies, jealously/hate from others, and all the drama that comes with owning a closed species, please save yourself the stress!It will happen. You need to be prepared to for it. It can cause a lot of unnecessary anxiety.

Don't be someone who is constantly on edge over similarities. Don't be snappy or passive-aggressive. Treat your customer base well! People remember how you treat them, and others.

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"Types" of Original Species:

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(I struggled with the wording here? Wasn't sure how to refer to these two. Want to make it clear that neither is better than the other, but that I will be focusing on the kind that I personally make.)

Before you create your species, you should decide what sort of thing you're going for. Generally, I see these two kinds of OS adopts around dA:

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Feature-focused species that are very alike real-world or fantasy animals, often with a specific feature, ability or

backstory that makes them stand out from other species and their real-world counterparts.

Examples:-Sushi Dog/Cat (Witchpaws)-Waterdog (Alfeddy)

Pros:

-Often easy for your customers to draw! (BIG bonus!)

-Great for MYO's!

-Much less stress on being "unique"

Cons:

-Somewhat easy for people to imitate ("You can't own ___ feature!!")

-Can be a little harder to gain recognition - These very much rely on have great individual character designs.

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Anatomy-focused species, that are not directly affiliated with real-world or fantasy animals and rely

more on their body structure/build to make them feel unique/special/whathaveyou.

Examples:-Mantibab (Phloxebutt)-Coukyo (Kub-e)

Pros:

-Can be easier to gain recognition/audience if the core design is appealing.

-Much harder for people to "steal" successfully.

Cons:

-Many anatomy types/proportions are already heavily used.

-Can take a LOT of time to really get your own design down - easy to make anatomy mistakes!

-Need to be very careful about making something too similar to others'.

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Recipe for Success

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Things I personally find help boost sales and reception! Once again, opinion! None of this is required, none of it is the only way. A lot of this has to do with my own person tastes, also!

-Solid base design

Goes without saying. How your species looks before you add all the flair.

-Solid backstory or worldbuilding.

Make sure people know what your species are all about! Rich backstory & species info is especially important for feature-focused species.

-Attractive, clear art style

Artwork should be easy to understand. I don't recommend heavy shading or lighting effects for adopt sales, as you want the markings and colors to be easy for your customers to recreate!

-Variability

Make sure your individual adopts don't look like the same recolored character over and over. Trait variability is very important.I don't recommend heavily restricting your own color & marking use for this reason!

-Personality

You want your customers to be able to have fun with individual designs! You want to make them feel like characters!Expressions, gesture & posing, etc can really help you adopts stand out. Design them outfits, or accessories! Add a little backstory snippet!Anything to help them stand out as individuals.

-Enthusiasm

Important! If you don't like your species, others aren't going to be feeling it either. Have some passion!Don't settle for designs you don't think are that personally great. Set standards.

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From this point on I'll be mostly focusing on anatomy-focused species, the kind I personally make. Lots of it can still be applied to other species, however!

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Base Design

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First of all...

Don't Rush.

Seriously! Don't worry about making designs and adopts and all that within a few days. You do not want to be stuck later on with something you're not 100% satisfied with.Getting your species actually released could take months, and that's 100% okay! Don't rush it!

Unless you already have a pretty good idea of what sort of body type to go for, base design can be really, really hard.

Never let yourself feel like a failure if you aren't coming up with a super unique/amazing design right away.I'd like to emphasize how difficult that can be. Don't be hard on yourself.

Consider when designing a body type/overall design:

-What's your species main feature?

It's generally good to have some kind of idea behind your species before you start. It can be vague!Decide what your species does! Are they magical? Carnivores?Where do they live?Aquatic? Terrestrial?A great background idea can really make a species.

-Make it recognizable!

Personally, this is my biggest thing. I want something that has its own identity. I want to be able to see a silhouette or thumbnail, and know exactly what species I'm looking at.

-Don't get stuck.

Sometimes a great idea will just not pan out. If there's a feature that's not really working, stop trying to change everything else to compensate. Try replacing that feature. You can always use it for something else in the future!

The above are not bad things or to be avoided, but I don't recommend having all or most of these things at once.If you want to really stand out, avoiding these can help.

A shortcut to doing this would be to cut out a lot of the more common body types, namely canine or common fantasy/draconian anatomies. There are a LOT of these out there. I'd recommend avoiding it at this point if you can, just because you'll be making things more difficult on yourself if you don't.

Don't start dressing up your species/adding features until you've got a good basic anatomy.

Best way to get a good look at how your species' body type is going, Make a silhouette! Does it look unique?If not, play with proportions. Mess with the shapes. Play with the transform tool. Add a different head!

Keep in mind there's absolutely no rush. This is, in my opinion, the most important part of species creation. Don't settle for something you find boring. It might just come to you one day randomly!

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Traits

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This one's completely on you. I personally find the base design much more important than the variable traits, but consider:

Make sure your species retains its identity.

Don't let it get buried under hair and wings and horns and whatever else until it totally loses its individuality.

Keep rare stuff rare.

Lets be real, when 60% of your adopts have a "rare" trait... it's not really rare.

Have a good number of variable traits available!

Don't let your species get stale because of a limited number of variations!

Don't be afraid to mix it up.

It's really okay to add new traits and stuff later on. Don't let a previous trait/feature guide keep you from experimenting.

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Success!

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Do you like your species? Enjoy drawing and designing them? Congrats! You have a successful species!

-----------------------------------------------------CLOSED-----------------------------------------------------------------EDIT 2- We've hit 2500 entries! It's time to start picking numbers and see who won.

EDIT- I'm sorry to do this, but I'm ending my giveaway when I reach 2500 entries. It was lots of fun to host, but it's getting hard to keep up with everything going on. Each day I come on here, I have around 200 messages or so to take care of. It takes me around 3 hours at times to get caught up. I'm sorry to end this early but I can't take the stress anymore. When the entries hit 2500, I'm closing this giveaway and picking the winners. Thanks for your understanding.

I can't believe how much interest there's been in my giveaways so far! You all wanted a huge giveaway and now you're going to get it!

Let's start off with the prizes first!

One winner for 3000 One winner for 2000 five winners for 1000 five winners for 500 ten winners for 100 twenty five winners for 50 fifty winners for 25 three winners for 10

Yes you read those correctly! There will be exactly 100 winners with this giveaway. Why so many winners and points you're probably wondering? This is my way of saying thanks to the best art community for the incredible art you've made for me.

How to enter You have multiple options to choose from to get numbers for this giveaway. Pick whichever ones you like.

1. Comment on this journal for one number [This one is required so I can tell you what your number(s) are.]2. Favorite this journal for one number3. Make a journal advertising this for one number4. Watch me for one number [Yes, you can unwatch me if you want afterwards.]5. COMMENT on my artwork. For each one you comment on, you get another number. Let me know on here afterward which ones you commented on otherwise, I won't know if you're commenting on them to get another number or just because you like my work. 6. Make some art with my favorite character in it. This is what she looks like: sta.sh/22fekec2m94m With doing this option, the art work MUST have some effort put into it. If it's something drawn quick with no thought put into it, it will not be accepted. When you make art work, link me to it and you'll get three numbers for this giveaway per picture. The most pictures you can submit is 10 which will give you 30 numbers for this giveaway.

If you want even more numbers, make me some really good quality artwork with the character I showed you above. I'm talking something you put lots of effort into and don't rush through quickly with little thought put into it. If you do this, you can enter as many pictures as you want and will get 10 numbers for each picture. This will greatly increase your chances of winning so I advise going this route if you enter art.

DEADLINE - April 8th

SUSHI DOGS

Buttercream Icing moss covers her back and with fern leaves and toadstools growing from the moss,Her Yule Log Tail with buttercream icing bark and oak leaf decorations,Acorn earrings and her friendly Marzipan mouse companion, forest yule log is a happy SooshHer sweet smell and demeanor attracts happy little bugs, depending on the time of year different bugs will be attracted.From fireflies to moths, ladybugs to snails.Happy little Forest Yule log will make you always feel richer and joyful.-----------------------------------

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pieby TorotixLooks can be deceiving and this Sushi Dog® certainly proves that. Will you trust their cloudy mashed potato body of a friendly sheep, or the sharp teeth and dark coat of a hungry Sushi Dog? >: D

But of course, this Soosh may like to play tricks but true to their Sushi Dog® nature, they are essentially harmless and very fun-loving!

This Sushi Dog features an uncommon bandana knot and rare long horns.--------------------------

with these retro pop rocks called cosmic space dust you will rock out any place!its 2015 how better to be cool then this 80s Soosh\m/ (UnU) \m/Sparkley fur and tail ribbon on a 3rd, this Triptych has some far out traits!Party on dudes and love these poppers to the moon and back~spaceships and ufo's batteries not included~

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M&M Dunk-a-roo

by MileyKittyCatsay G'day and Hop on board with this fair dinkum Soosh, any kid would be chuffed to get a dunk-a-roo soosh.with m&m necklace, baseball cap and long roo tail with a tail ribbon, strewth too good a deal to pass up

Alright, considering that this worked out very well last time and I'm bored I thought that I'd talk about another facet of my personality. I don't know if I would call it unusual, because apparently about every one out of a hundred people are asexual...? Honestly, it feels like a lot less and I'll get into that. For those who don't know, I am an aromantic asexual. You can be one without the other, although I don't know how common that actually is. It seems very simple to me and a very easy concept to grasp: people who are asexual do not have a sexual attraction to people of either gender, and people who are aromantic do not desire a romantic relationship with either gender. But honestly, anyone who has gone through middle school can tell that... life without sexual goals, desires, or interests is very different. Literally every conversation I had in the seventh grade was this:

"So what girl are you into?""None""Oh, so you're gay then."

I'm going to be honest. This is going to be a little disorganized and a little less cohesive because I have to explain a lack of something that I do not have and can only barely relate to. I have never had a sexual desire towards any person for my entire life. It's hard for me to see why, for example, sexual advertisements work. It's a large reason that I can't get any investment into romance stories. I can't care if it's just two good-looking people wanting to get it on with each other. I literally cannot relate to those emotions. What I can relate to though is the underlying relationship. This is why I really like To the Moon. It's not just Boy wants to bang girl. It's about a relationship between two people and the attraction is only a facet of that.

I suppose I should get rid of some misconceptions. Asexual does not mean sterile or chaste. Most asexual people have the physical ability to have sex. They can even start families and have children. A romantic asexual in an actual relationship is likely to have sex, but in most cases it's for the other person, not them. Even an asexual knows that sex is a part of an adult relationship. Hell, sometimes they can even enjoy it. But here's the real kicker: being asexual does not mean that you don't have a sex drive. They can get the desire to... relieve themselves... but it's usually a physical thing and only a physical thing. Some asexuals don't desire, let's continue to call it relief, and some do, a lot. Sexual does not mean sensual, and nothing is stopping asexuals from getting phyiscal joy from sexual activities, like masturbation. Your sexual orientation doesn't really have much to do with how active or inactive your sex drive is. And yes, many asexuals relieve themselves and they literally have to do it independent of thoughts of other people, men or women. Maybe they're lucky and they have a fetish. Yes, asexual people can have a sexual fetish. The definition is not being sexually attracted to a person of either sex. You can have a scenario where an asexual man is more turned on by his girlfriends' clothes and than his girlfriend. I can't really imagine how that conversation would go.

But it does make relationships complicated. I mean it can really harm someone's self-confidence if their partner doesn't find them sexually attractive. Even moreso if they don't believe in asexuality. Yes, a lot of people don't believe that asexuality exists. I honestly don't blame them. I mean, asexual people aren't exactly looking for marriage rights, and in media it's hard to find showcase a lack of something unless the piece of media is romance, and if you're putting an asexual person in your romantic film you're doing it wrong. An obvious downside is that there isn't many people in media to explain to asexual people that it's normal to not be sexually attracted to anyone. And if they do get into that scenario, they're usually declared late bloomers. I mean, one of the main drives for the dumbass dads in sitcoms is getting sex with their wife or being refused by them.

The hardest part is probably going through middle school. All of your friends are making dick jokes which you don't find funny. They're bringing up nude pictures and drawing obscenities which you find repulsive. You can't really say so, or else you'll be considered an outcast... or gay (even if the guys were drawing pictures of dicks. I seriously don't get that. They call everything gay as an insult while being obsessed about dicks. I don't think that's an asexual thing either). There are other annoyances though. I've mentioned the sexually-charged media. It really turns me off, like sexual thoughts gross me out, period. I'm not a romantic asexual, but I can imagine a situation where you'd have a girlfriend who thinks that she's "hot" enough to bring you out of your asexuality. It's not a disease or disorder (although some medications do have the side effect of lowering the sex drive/sexual attraction). Oh, and by the way, asexual people can tell whether someone is aesthetically pleasing. They can still tell if people look good or not.

This is really hard to describe for multiple reasons. Namely, I'm not every single asexual out there. I haven't been in every single scenario where a sexuality would be called into question. I'm also aromantic. You'd probably get a better, more complex story from a romantic asexual who is actually in a relationship. I don't have any interest in doing so at any point. Oh, and just because you don't want a girlfriend (i.e. you like the single life much better) doesn't make you asexual. I won't get the desire to do so. Like I said before, it's hard to describe an absence of something. Asexual people don't posses sexual feelings towards other people. It doesn't mean they're broken or have a deficiency of something. It's just the way that they are.

Honestly in this case, it's much easier answering questions than just giving notes or experiences.

*edit* NO MORE entries beyond this edit of this journal please ;3; I need to finish giving everyone numbers lmao... so the winner will be chosen after that. I'm really busy today so I'll probably finishing giving out the numbers tomorrow and pick the winner then ;v;

Yep another one! Cus I love you guys who support me and I wanna reward you. :-D

How to enter, just a few steps!

-Fav this journal-Post a journal about this giveaway-Post a comment below linking the journal and I will give you a number!

That's all! <3

-You can watch me if you like my art, but you don't need to do it to enter and it will not increase your chances of winning, since I will be using Random.org to pick the winner at random. :-D <3

Ends March 1st!

Paradigm Shift

On 2014 I've imposed myself a challenge: "I should draw a doodle a day, during the whole year".The reason why I took such a challenge was because I wasn't happy with how much I created on the year before, on 2013.

Before starting the challenge I would procrastinate instead of drawing, I would wait for some magic sort of inspiration to come in order to draw anything at all.

That was the paradigm, the standards of my work flow.

After concluding the 365 Days of Doodles project I had a new paradigm: I can create one black&white drawing everyday.

What I want to do now in 2015 is changing the paradigm again: I want to add color palettes to my doodles. Seven, to be more specific.

The Project

Palette |pal - it|

noun"the range of colors used by a particular artist."

I have divided the palette project into 7 parts: each one represents a color of the rainbow. The following seven months will have a main color theme, from Red to Violet.

February - Red

March - Orange

April - Yellow

May - Green

June - Blue

July - Indigo

August - Violet

I hope that by the end of the project I'll have a better understanding of lighting, mood and coloring.

I've been trying to color both on traditional and digital media but I'm taking a liking on the latter. I'm still getting used to a lot of stuff so things may change throughout the project.

Color can shape the world in amazing ways. This is the message I want to transmit on my drawings this year. Hope you enjoy it!

THIS RAFFLE IS NOW CLOSED! THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR PARTICIPATING!

Hello everyone! First of all I would like to thank all of my watchers [old and new] for the support!! I would also like to apologize for replying so slow, but I really appreciate all of your comments! Right now I have reached 4k+ watchers, so I decided to have a raffle event as gratitude! Thanks guys! <3

CONGRATULATIONS!! I'LL NOTE EACH OF YOU!

✂- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --winners FOR BEST OC

AHHH I REALLY HAD A HARD TIME TO DECIDE!! FOR REAL!! Thank you all for sharing your OCs! You all have wonderful OCs! Each has its own unique style, design and personality. I want you all to be winners but that will be impossible for me lol that would be loads and loads of work. But what I will choose is based on my personal taste/preference. I'll also give 5 more consolation prize of headshot of my choice of their OCs. So here goes the winners......

If you want to have your OCs to be drawn by me, I will open my commission again sometime this year, so stay tuned!

PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU FAVORITED, OTHERWISE YOU ONLY WILL GET ONE NUMBER.

Hey everybody! It's been a while since I hosted my last point giveaway, but I decided it was time for another! These are always fun and everyone seems to love them.

So here's the deal! You don't HAVE to be watching me, but it would be nice! But please, don't watch me and then unwatch me after the giveaway ends. If you don't want to watch me, fine, doesn't matter!

All you need to do is COMMENT! I'll give you a number! IF YOU DON'T COMMENT BUT YOU SIMPLY FAVORITE, YOU WON'T GET A NUMBER. It's easier to keep track of comments!

You can also make a JOURNAL, I very strongly prefer that you DO NOT MAKE A POLL. It might be easier, but I want the word to get out about the giveaway and journals just work better! If you make a journal and link back to me, I'll give you a second number!

You can also favorite this journal entry, that gives you a THIRD number!

If you draw ANY of my characters, you also get TWO extra numbers per picture! BUT these are limited to five pictures; you can't make a million little scribbles and get a million numbers. MAX 5 PICTURES FOR ME = MAX 10 EXTRA NUMBERS -- My characters can all be found here: sta.sh/2nv3m6jzzam

Now for the prizes!

First place - $10/1,000 points! You can mix and match how much of each you want, as long as it equals $10 or 1,000 points!

Second place - $5/500 points! Again, you can mix and match how much of each you want.

Third place - $5/500 points! Again, you can mix and match how much of each you want.

Fourth place - $2.50/250 points! Again, you can mix and match how much of each you want.

Fifth place - $2.50/250 points! Again, you can mix and match how much of each you want.

That's it I guess! Hopefully this goes over well, thanks for reading!

The giveaway will end sometime around March 20th to April 10th! If I'm still getting more entries as March 20th comes closer, I'll extend it further so more people have a chance to win!